What is Biodiversity?
Biodiversity is termed as the variability among living organisms from all sources, including terrestrial, marine and other aquatic ecosystems and the ecological complexes of which they are the part, and this includes diversity within species, between species and that of ecosystems. It also refers to the interrelatedness of genes, species, and ecosystem and in turn, interaction with the environment. Biodiversity found on Earth today consists of many million of distinct biological species, the product of four billion years of evolution.
The Word “Biodiversity” is thought to have first been coined as a contraction of term “biological diversity” in 1985 and then popularized by a number of authors.
Conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity is fundamental to ecologically sustainable development. Biodiversity is part of our daily lives and livelihood, and constitutes resources upon which families, communities, nations and future generations depend.
Why is Biodiversity Important?
The diverse biological entities, along with natural resources from air, land, and water, provide the basis for life and also the sustainability and development of societies. Holistically, biodiversity facilitates the process of renewal of biomass, soil, water and air, free recycling and purification in nature, and also ensures co-existence and cultural balance of hosts of living organisms together with their friends and foes, such as scavengers, predators, pests, and pathogens.
Biodiversity is also important to maintain the ‘web of life’. The building blocks of plants, animals, and human are identical and are made of the four elements – carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen.
There are many other services provided by Biodiversity listed below
- Protection of water resources
- Soil formation and protection
- Nutrient storage and recycling
- Pollution breakdown and absorption
- Biodiversity provides the wood products, ornamental plants, medical resources, Future resources.
- They provide diversity in genes which helps to develop better breed of animals, high yielding varieties of crops and other benefits
- Higher biodiversity in the tropical region is helping tourism industries to grow more
- Biodiversity having some cultural values as well
So, biodiversities having infinite benefits for humans, it’s our responsibility to conserve biodiversity, that our future generation gets the same benefits as we have. We have to give same earth to our future generation as we get from our ancestors.
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